Category Archives: Travel

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, March 5th.

This is the last article in my 4-part series on the 21 breweries that can be found within the borders of this very small state. This final chapter of the series will focus on the southern most portion of the state. Both the people population and the breweries are spread farther apart in this region than in the other 3 regions that we have discussed so far, but that takes nothing away from the availability of their beer to the rest of us. In fact, two of the breweries in this southern region are among the largest in the state and have their beer distributed state-wide as well as outside of the state’s boundaries.

The three previous articles in the series, in the order that they appeared, are:

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, January 8th.

This is the third in my series of four articles briefly highlighting each of the breweries that can be found in the small state of Vermont. We are truly blessed with an abundance of quality craft breweries , currently 21 of them, to be shared among the second smallest population of any of the 50 states. The combination of being able to reach any portion of this state from my house within two hours driving time (or so) and the large variety of breweries to choose from, creates for me a somewhat unique opportunity not shared by folks that live in much larger states; that being the ability to easily sample many of the fine beers brewed by all of these establishments fairly frequently.

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, December 4th.

This is the second in a series of articles which highlight the wonderful variety of breweries available to us Vermonters. As I have told you before, with 21 in-state breweries and less than 650,000 people in the entire state, Vermont has the very best ratio of breweries to people in the country. In my first article in this series – Made in Vermont: Burlington Region – I included a brief review of seven of the breweries in Vermont’s northwest corner. In today’s article I will focus on the more northern central region of the state and another six breweries which can be found within this region.

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, November 13th.

Last weekend my son, Jamie, and I traveled down to Boston for the annual Belgian Beer Fest. Held at the Cyclorama in the Back Bay region of Boston, this festival brings together Belgian and Belgian-style brewers as well as distributors of these beers for a celebration of a type of beer that I have come to love.

I was disappointed that I missed the opportunity to participate in the “Night of Funk” held on Friday night before the actual festival on Saturday. This one-session festival unto itself is THE place where the brewers haul out their very best for the crowd lucky enough to gain tickets to this exclusive session. We attended the afternoon session on Saturday and the brewers and distributor representatives in attendance were still talking about what a “Funky” time they had the night before. Next year I will try to get in line sooner for tickets, so that I too can experience the very best that this festival has to offer.

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My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The HopPress… posted on Saturday, November 6th.

As I have said before, Vermont is Beer Country! Back in 2009 the Brewers Association declared Vermont as having the highest per capita concentration of breweries of any state in the land (Breweries Per Capita). This awesome designation was awarded based on the 2008 Vermont census and the presence of, at the time, 19 craft beer breweries within the state’s borders. That’s 19 breweries for Vermont’s 621,270 citizens or about one brewery for every 32,698 Vermonters. Breweries have come and gone since that time and, as a result, Vermont has added a net of 2 new breweries, for a current total of 21. With approximately the same population as in 2008, this means that there is now about 1 brewery for every 29,584 Vermonters. I think that it is very unlikely that any state has surpassed this outstanding people/brewery ratio since these figures were last published.

Some of my fellow HopPress writers have presented a tour of the breweries in their own states, so I thought that it would be only right that I do the same for Vermont. With there being 21 of them, I will not spend the time in this article attempting to cover all of them; that would end up being quite long and pretty boring. Instead I will talk, first, about the 7 breweies located in only one region of the state… the greater northwestern portion of the state, which I will call the “Burlington” region, named after our largest city (pop. 38,647 in 2009).

My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The Hop Press… posted on Saturday, May 22th.

My wife and I have been in Myrtle Beach for the last week. The place we have rented is very nice, right on the beach and the weather has mostly been perfect for relaxing in the sunshine. Its a much needed rest for the both of us after a very hectic fall, winter and spring. Being the beer lover that I am, one of my favorite things to do while traveling on vacation is to sample some of the regional beer offerings.

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My latest featured article for RateBeer’s The Hop Press… posted on Saturday, March 27th.

I have talked before about the planning work being done for my May vacation this year. Work has been super busy for the last 9 months or so and I am really looking forward to the break; though it is still about 6 weeks away. As we discussed what might be on the travel itinerary this year, all sorts of thoughts spun through my head about where we might go for this vacation. It should probably come as no surprise that “beer” was, at least initially, part of the discussion.

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I have been wanting to visit the Bobcat Cafe & Brewery for a long time and I was not disappointed. The brewpub is located right on the main “drag” in downtown Bristol, Vermont. We arrived a bit before the dining room opened and were immediately “assigned” a table for when we were ready to eat and we sat at the bar while waiting. The decor is old, warm and homey… lots of real wood everywhere. The bartender was very social and quite knowledgeable about the beer that they were serving. They had 12 taps with their own beer that night along with a small selection of “foreign” taps. I also noticed that they have a “mug club” here and the tender told us it was fully subscribed… a good sign. Since 4 oz. beer “samplers” were only $1 and I had a designated driver with me, I was able to sample all 12 of their in-house selections. While I definitely felt that some of them were better than others… several were very good, one was not good at all… the brewer clearly knows what he is doing.

When we did get to dinner, I was pleasantly surprised to find much more than just the standard pub fare… in fact some of their offerings were down right unusual… Vermont venison/chorizo meatloaf, for example. I had a nice salad and an order of something they called a “pecora” (batter fried slivered vegetables), which were both very tasty. The traffic through their door while we were there was busy (a Saturday night), but the staff efficiently moved them through. As with the bartender, the wait-staff was knowledgeable and very friendly. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit and will hope to get back there sometime soon.